THE Work and Pensions Secretary was slammed over the expensive vanity project which was part of a £250,000 House of Commons spending spree on pictures of MPs.

TORY lies that we’re all in this together were blown apart yesterday by news that MPs splurged £10,000 on
a portrait of benefit cuts enforcer Iain Duncan Smith.

The Work and Pensions Secretary was slammed last night over the expensive vanity project – part of a £250,000 House of Commons spending spree on pictures of MPs.

IDS has brought misery to millions with his welfare cuts and is the architect of the hated bedroom tax.

But
in 2004, his Westminster colleagues commissioned a £10,000 portrait of him by acclaimed international artist Paul Benney, whose works are displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

MPs also forked out £4000 to preserve Foreign Secretary William Hague in oils and £8000 for a painting of Ken Clarke.

Labour heavyweights Diane Abbott, Dennis Skinner and Tony Benn also sat for portraits at a total cost £15,930.

And
three Lib Dem leaders were captured for posterity – Lord Ashdown for £2000, Charles Kennedy for £6000 and Sir Menzies Campbell for £10,346.

Jonathan Isaby, of the Tax-Payers’ Alliance, said: “While the public might expect former PMs to be afforded the honour of a painting in Parliament, it would seem the net is being cast increasingly wide.”